


Patterns

by elumish



Series: Perceptive Reality [2]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Episode: s01e03 The Enemy Within, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-05
Updated: 2015-05-05
Packaged: 2018-03-29 03:54:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3881263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elumish/pseuds/elumish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People like to find patterns in everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Patterns

People like to find patterns in everything, like the man who had once argued to Daniel that relationships were like prison because the word gaol meant relationship in Gaelic and prison in English, ignoring the Proto-Celtic root of one and Old English root of the other. But even Daniel had to admit he saw this pattern—people who got close to him got taken over by Goa’ulds.

First Sha’re, his beautiful Sha’re, who had been given to him as a gift but who had become so much more. She had been brave and lovely and more than he had ever expected. And now she was a Goa’uld, Apophis’s Goa’uld, and he didn’t know if he would ever see her again.

And Skaara had been so young, so clever and dedicated to learning English. He had been like family to Daniel, and even Jack who didn’t particularly like anybody had liked him.

And now Kawalsky was dead, and he had died a Goa’uld, and Daniel couldn’t help but think that it was all his fault. If he hadn’t unburied the gate on Abydos, they would never have come through, and they would never have ended up on Chulak, and even if they would never have found their airman—airwoman?—they hadn’t really anyway, so it wouldn’t have changed anything.

But he had, and now he had to live with the consequences. And maybe, hopefully, fix even a little bit of what he had done.

“Dr. Jackson.” Daniel’s head snapped up to look at the Captain-Doctor, who was standing on the other side of the cafeteria table he was nursing a coffee mug at. “Sorry if I surprised you. Would you mind if I joined you?”

Daniel waved a hand at the other chair, almost knocking over his mug as he did. “Go right ahead.”

She sat down, setting down a cup of blue jello and a spoon in front of her. “I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry about your wife, Dr. Jackson.”

His temper spiked. “She’s not dead.”

“I know that, but she’s still not with you, and I’m sorry for that.”

Right. Okay. “Sorry. I’m just a bit short on sleep right now.”

She eyed his coffee, then took a bite of her jello. “How long has it been since you slept?”

“I’m used to thirty-six hour days, so this is a hell of a jet-lag.” Also known as, he wasn’t particularly sure how long it had been since he had slept, but he didn’t particularly want to tell her that.

Her eyes went wide, and she set the jello aside to say, “You mentioned that earlier, on Abydos, but I didn’t get a chance to ask about it. Were you really living on a planet with thirty-six hour days?”

Daniel nodded. “Yeah.”

“What was what like? How was the adjustment? How did it affect the growth of plants and animals?”

“The adjustment was…hard.” And adjusting back was being a bitch. “They had a two sleep per day system. At their equivalent of noon, which was around the eighteen-hour mark, it tended to average over a hundred and there wasn’t really much shade to speak of, so we would have rest time times then, and then we would have another rest time during full-dark.”

“That’s amazing.” She grabbed another bite of jello. “I guess when you transplant humans into a world without a twenty-four-hour-like day, diurnality ends up being bred out because it just doesn’t work with the human physicality. That makes a lot of sense, actually.”

Daniel nodded, taking a drink of his coffee. Which was, he realized, at least half an hour old, because it was disgustingly lukewarm. “Yeah. The people on Abydos, they…adjust.”

The Captain-Doctor reached out to set a hand on his arm. “We will do what we can to get them back. And you might want to get some sleep.”

Right. “Thanks.” She stood, grabbing her cup with her, and as she started to walk away, he remembered, “Dr. Carter.”

She turned to look at him. “Yes?”

“I was just saying thanks.”

“Ah.” Her expression lightened. “You’re welcome, Dr. Jackson.”

“Daniel.”

“Daniel.” She smiled, then turned and walked away.


End file.
